


A Helpful FAQ

by Siamesa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:29:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siamesa/pseuds/Siamesa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Renly Baratheon accidentally spent the War of Four Kings on vacation in Dorne, surviving King Stannis's small council meetings takes a clear understanding of people and politics.  Luckily, he's here to provide both... or so he thinks.</p>
<p>[Second half finally up.  Welcome to the North.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Italiano available: [Domande frequenti](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12975576) by [Siamesa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siamesa/pseuds/Siamesa), [StarkStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkStar/pseuds/StarkStar)



> Thanks for Vana for beta work and encouragement. I love Stannis dearly, and that is why I mock him so.

 

To our new Master of Coin:

 

Welcome to the Small Council!  I’ve written up a guide that might help you extend your career, keep your head, and maybe, just maybe, benefit the realm.  Things have changed around here in the past two months, obviously, and a lot of these changes will take some getting used to.

 

Point one: the king actually attends small council meetings now.  In fact, the king is usually the first to arrive, and often schedules new ones at odd hours of the morning.

 

Q: Does that mean he is glad to be there?

A: No.

Q: So why...

A: Because they are the closest thing he has to a social life.

Q: Can I show up drunk?

A: If you show up drunk, you will immediately be fired.

Q: By fired, do you mean “set on fire?”

A: Not unless you show up drunk and hit on Melisandre.

 

That leads us into our next segment:

Point Two: your fellow council members.  I’ll start with the obvious one: me.

 

Me!

 

As Master of Law, I am the only person remaining from King Robert’s council (probably; see below).  I have been doing this job since I was sixteen.  Normal people would think this makes me qualified; normal people are not my brother.  He spent most of my first week grilling me about the finer points of law in the Seven Kingdoms.  Expect him to ask you a lot of math questions.

 

Q: How fine is a “finer point?”

A: Did you know it is illegal to carry a carrot in your back pocket in the Riverlands? 

Q: I did not.

A: The penalty can range from a stiff fine to hanging.

Q: Where were you during the war, when men were dying and bleeding?

A: As I have informed his grace repeatedly, I was in Dorne, overseeing a royal peace between the long-feuding Houses of Tyrell and Martell.

Q: How did it go?

A: I believe that, properly motivated, the combined forces of these two Houses have an _enormous_ amount to offer the crown.  The experience was a highlight of my life.

Q: It took six months?

A: It was a _fantastic_ peace.

 

Moving on to the next most attractive person in the room:

 

The Lady Melisandre.

 

A Red Priestess from Asshai, Melisandre (do NOT call her Mel) makes up for being a female foreigner by being _batshit insane._   However, she makes up for being female, foreign, _and_ batshit insane by stopping assassination attempts, massaging the king’s ego, and honestly sometimes doing a decent job of pretending to be a reasonable individual who offers good advice.  The first time you see Melisandre, you want to run.  The second time, you realize she’s not that bad.  By the fourth or fifth time, however, you realize that, no, you _really_ should have run.

 

Has appeared sincerely if moderately amused by two of my jokes, which is a plus.  Thinks Stannis is the Chosen One, which is not.

 

Q: Is she sleeping with the king?

A: I have no idea.  I say this, honestly, I genuinely have no idea.  Probably.

Q: Should I bring up, at any time, the fact that she is probably sleeping with the king?

A: Hahahah GODS NO.

Q: Should I convert to her religion?

A: Doing so will not actually make her shut up about it.

Q: Do I need to pretend I also think the king is Azor Ahai reborn?

A: It honestly rarely comes up.  I myself am incapable of handling the idea with a straight face, but do what you think is best.

Q: Does she have genuine magical powers, or is she like that Thoros idiot and his “magic” sword?

A: She can light candles by glaring at them.  She might be able to see the future.  People she dislikes tend to have really bizarre unfortunate accidents.  Otherwise, see the first Q.

Q: If she approaches me with a leech, I should...

A: Run.

 

Lord Davos Seaworth, Hand of the King.

 

I first met Davos during the siege of Storm’s End, when I was six years old, and ate so much saltfish that I threw up.  My brother displayed his charming personal philosophy by giving him a knighthood and chopping off four of his fingers.  For some inexplicable reason, this convinced Davos that the sun orbits Stannis’s head.  Is currently Lord of the Rainwood, because if the nobility got pissy about Stannis making a smuggler a knight, surely they’ll get over themselves when he names him Emperor of the Moon.

 

A generally reasonable individual with one enormous blindspot.  His job is to offer the king honest advice to ignore.

 

Q: Is _he_ sleeping with the king?

A: It would explain a great deal.  I’d give it worse odds than Melisandre, though.  Note also that such a betting pool is just the kind of thing to get innocent people kicked off the  council, and you should certainly not approach Loras Tyrell.

Q: Is he going to rob the castle blind and flee, laughing maniacally?

A: Probably not.

Q: Okay, so if it’s neither of those, what _is_ his endgame?

A: I have no idea.  He may just be a genuinely good man.

Q: Oh dear.

A: Indeed.

Q: Can he be bribed to kill the king?

A: You know that horrible smoky smell that permeated the courtyard when you arrived?

Q: Yeah?

A: That was the last guy who thought that.

Q: So he’s down with Melisandre?

A: Oh, no, not at all.  Just no treason.

 

The Current Master of Ships.

 

Stannis has been king for two months.  In that time, there have been five Masters of Ships, not counting the one at the bottom of Blackwater Bay.  There is a simple reason for this: he used to be Master of Ships.  He is convinced he can do the job better than whichever poor sod holds the office this week, and furthermore that so can Lord Seaworth, and that furthermore probably so can Melisandre.  The unfortunate thing is that in several cases so far, he’s been right.  _Shireen_ could have done a better job than Number Four.

 

There will likely be a new Master of Ships by the time of your first council meeting; don’t bother getting to know him.

 

Q: _Five?_

A: Five.

Q: What did they do?

A: An excellent question.  A partial list of reasons the Master of Ships can be fired is found below, keeping in mind that some of them were responsible for more than one entry, and some entries were responsible for more than one firing.

 

  1.     Being late to meetings.
  2.    Eating at the Council table.
  3.    Insulting Lord Seaworth.
  4.    Irritating Melisandre.
  5.    Disagreeing with the King.
  6.    Agreeing with the King.
  7.    Gross incompetence.
  8.    Drowning.



 

I hope that sorts things out.

 

Not!Varys, Master of Whisperers.

 

“Proved” his “loyalty” by “discovering” a “plot” “against” the “king.”  _Probably_ is not Varys in a hood and large false mustache, but as that leaves him as exactly who he says he is (a poor apprentice spymaster of no importance), it’s not much of an improvement.

 

Q: What happened to the actual Varys?

A: He got the hell out of Dodge before Stannis could finish “cleaning house.”

Q: Speaking of which, what happened to the last Master of Coin?

A: No one is sure.  There have, however, been reports of a strange trail of slime on the road to the Eyrie.

 

Current Head of the Goldcloaks.

 

From what I can gather, this is a highly competent man of common blood who was elected into the position by his peers.  My brother is insane.

 

The Jerk In Charge of the Kingsguard, Something-or-Other Florent, I Don’t Care

 

This man’s primary non-ear-related distinguishing feature is the gross miscarriage of justice that was his promotion to the position over Loras Tyrell.  Some might think that the Captain’s position should go to the strongest, truest, and best-looking knight on the guard, but apparently these people were not consulted.

 

I trust you will work with me to remedy this injustice.

 

And, of course…

 

The King Himself.  Stannis Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Defender of the Realm.

 

 

Excuse me.

 

~~It’s just, you cannot understand, waking up in Dorne one morning to hear that some idiot had made _Stannis_ king~~

But back to the point. 

 

Stannis convincingly won the Second Battle of King’s Landing, fairly convincingly proved that that little bastard abomination Joffrey was, in fact, a bastard abomination, and somewhat less convincingly argued that he himself was a reasonable human being whom other reasonable human beings would want as their king.  Nevertheless, here he is, and I hope you will join me in putting your full support behind him.

 

You may, at some point during the first five seconds of your first council meeting, get the impression that Stannis does not like you.  You may also, if you last until your fifth council or so, get the far more dangerous impression that Stannis _does_ like you, deep down, and in fact values your advice.

 

Q: Which of these impressions is correct?

A: Here’s a helpful guideline:

 

How Stannis speaks to someone he is about to have executed:

            “I ought to shorten your head for this.”

How Stannis speaks to his best and only friend:

            “I ought to shorten your head for this, smuggler.”

 

I hope this sorts things out.

Q: The King has given me a nickname.  Is this good?

A: No.  As a general rule, it’s also a bad nickname.

 

 

Point Three.  What actually happens at Council meetings?

 

Arrive on time.  This is ENORMOUSLY important.  If you do nothing else your entire time on the Council (and this is not difficult), always arrive on time.  Even when, for some godsforsaken reason, there is an emergency session at four in the morning, arrive on time.

 

There are certain things that can be counted on to happen at every single meeting.  Count on, for instance, every general proposal to be greeted with a variant of this conversation:

 

Melisandre: We should set something on fire.

Davos: We should not set anything on fire.

 

They will continue in this vein for some time.  Occasionally someone else will chime in, but, take my word for it, this is pointless.  The king was very disappointed to learn that he could not simply appoint Melisandre and Lord Seaworth to three council positions each, and cut out the middlemen.

 

Eventually, Stannis will interrupt, and pick, I don’t know, which ever one is giving him the better shoulder massage at the moment, and we either will or will not set something on fire.  If it is a very important something, one or both of them may continue to argue even after he makes his decision.  **They are the only ones allowed to do this.**

Q: Are there any other recurring topics of discussion?

A:  I’m glad you asked!  The three major recurring non-pyromania-related Council discussion topics are as follows:

 

The War In the North.

 

This is, obviously, a very important subject, and it should come as no surprise that we of the Council can often come up with as many as seventeen contradictory opinions on what should be done about it per session.

 

Recurring points of emphasis with regards to the war include “his father died for my claim the throne,” “maybe winter will just come and kill them all,” and “have we considered setting Sansa Stark on fire?”  The problems with all of these points should be obvious.

 

That Targaryen Girl In Essos

 

Expect most of this discussion to derail into a debate over the existence of dragons.  There’ll be wings darkening King’s Landing before we sort this one out.

 

 

Assassination Attempts

 

The realm put up with Mad King Aerys for almost twenty years before a combination of poor parenting and wildfire got him stabbed in the back.  Joffrey began his reign by blatantly ignoring his advisors and killing not only a Lord Paramount, but actual, literal babies, and it still took a war to get him off the throne.  Stannis has been king for two months, and people have so far attempted to kill him on at least a weekly basis.

 

Why is this?  It’s a complicated question, a question that will no doubt be answered in five-paragraph format by untold bored history students in the centuries to come.  Here is a list of things Stannis has done to piss off the general population of Westeros:

 

Started a war

Converted to a foreign religion

Attempted to convert others to said foreign religion/is not trying hard enough to convert others to said foreign religion

Severely increased grain taxes

Failed to end a war

Stopped holding jousts

Been generally unlikeable

Has yet to smile in public

Assassinated Tywin Lannister

Keeps setting people on fire

Refuses to let go of grudges just because we all spent a year eating rats

Is suddenly and bizarrely worried about ice zombies

 

And here is a list of the only thing the average person at court seems to see a problem with:

 

Made an upjumped smuggler Hand of the King

 

Q: That can’t be right.  Surely they also object to Melisandre?

A: Not to her face, they don’t.

Q: That’s reason- wait.  _Ice zombies?_

A: Your guess is as good as mine.

 

And that about sums it up.  I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting, provided the roads hold up, the North stays put, and grumpkins don’t descend from the sky.

 

_Renly Baratheon, Prince of Storm’s End._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a small, unpleasant patch of land between the Twins and the Neck. It is not large enough for two armies. It is certainly not large enough for these two.

Welcome to the North: A Helpful FAQ 

[Important note: Yes, yes, I realize we are not technically in the North yet.  I think you’ll all agree, however, that “Welcome to the Freezing Cold Arse-End of the Riverlands” just doesn’t have the same ring.]

 

The First Question: What, in the name of all the gods, are we doing _here?_

 

I’m glad you asked!  We are “resolving the war.”  We may also be going to rescue the Wall, but I hope the Watch is dug in, because they’re going to be waiting a long, long time.

 

Q: I’ve also heard something about ice zombies?

A: There’s a hand.  It used to move on its own.

Q: Really?

A: It was, and I’ll admit it, really, really gross.

Q: But _ice zombies?_

A: Hey, if you can’t trust a fanatical pyromaniac who thinks Stannis Baratheon is the chosen one, who can you trust?

 

Resolving the War

Let’s get a few details about the War itself out of the way first.

 

Q: What started this?

A: The Lannisters imprisoned Ned Stark.

Q: Everyone involved in that sentence is dead.

A: You see the problem.

Q: So, why _continue_ this?

A: Northern Independence!

Q: Really?

A: No.  We continue this because the leaders of the two sides are a fifteen year old boy and my brother Stannis.

 

There are two methods to War Resolution.  I’ll call them **Battle** and **Diplomacy.**

Battle

(Aka: I’m assuming this is why we brought an army.)

 

Battle will further devastate an already-devastated kingdom.  This fact has never stopped anyone in the entire history of Westeros, but it’s at least slowing us down.

 

Q: Can we beat the North?

A: Undoubtedly.

Q: Can we beat the North and still have an army left to deal with the Wildlings?

A: Again, you see the problem.

 

This leaves us with option two, at least for now.

 

Diplomacy

Theoretically, this will end with Robb Stark bending the knee and Stannis re-naming him Lord Paramount.  We’ll join our forces, crush the Wildlings, and then turn our attention to the zombies. 

 

Our best weapon, diplomatically (besides myself, of course), is our ability to maintain a “united front.”  What this means is fairly simple.  An otherwise reasonable man, say Lord Seaworth, can spend eight hours at night slowly talking the King down from demanding any of Robb Stark’s body parts in payment for treason.  The next day, he can merely glance meaningfully and awkwardly down at his missing fingers when Stannis informs Lady Catelyn that he is going to chop off her son’s arm.

 

I do not like being part of a “united front.”

 

Q: Did that really happen?

A: Oh, my sweet summer child.  Excuse me while I laugh very, very bitterly.

 

That brings me to the next subject: our primary points-of-treaty.

 

Discarded: A marriage between Shireen Baratheon and either Brandon or Rickon Stark.

 

This plan, a time-honored favorite of awkward peace agreements everywhere, suffered its first setback when, of course, it came out that no one has any idea where Brandon Stark _is._ It suffered a final blow when we first met Rickon, who is four years old and enjoys biting on to people and refusing to let go.  He thinks he is a direwolf, which I suppose would be normal child behavior except that the _enormous black direwolf_ that follows him around is _also_ convinced he is a direwolf.  Grown men quail when they growl in unison.  Stannis is not going to allow him into the same _castle_ as Shireen, let alone risk him fathering a grandchild with a fondness for live rabbits.

 

Things we are willing to offer:

 

  1. Sansa Stark.



We found Sansa soon after taking King’s Landing, standing over Ilyn Payne’s bloody corpse with a knife.  It should be noted, however, that the wounds all appeared to have been inflicted by a large man with a longsword, meaning either that she didn’t kill him or that we are all basically still existing only at her leisure.

 

The Starks _really_ want Sansa back, but they are not yet willing to trade a kingdom for her, making them, at the very least, smarter than Rhaegar Targaryen.

 

Q: Will Stannis really kill her if they don’t surrender?

A: That’s kind of the point of a hostage.

Q: And?

A: I find it wisest not to set limits on what Stannis will or will not do.

Q: Do _they_ think Stannis will really kill her if they don’t surrender?

A: I think they’re pretty well convinced they can kill him first.

 

  1. Ice.



The ancestral Stark Valyrian greatsword, Ice is kept in a secret location that can be easily surmised by looking for the crowd of admiring squires.

 

Q: The Starks get a Valyrian _greatsword?_

A: The Starks, as they are fond of reminding us, were Kings in the North for eight thousand fucking years.

Q: Don’t squires usually have some sort of _duties_?

A: One would think.  Unfortunately, we’re suffering from something of a plague of squires at the moment, and we haven’t been able to assign them all to knights yet.

Q: What’s up with that, anyway?

A: Well, most of them are hostages from the Westerlands, and a decent chunk of the rest are Freys.

Q: How are the Freys doing, at the moment?

A: They attempted to fine Stannis a toll to cross their river, but to cut it in half if he’d kill Robb Stark for them.

Q: How’d that go?

A: I can honestly say that never in my life have I loved my brother more.

 

  1. “Your father died for my right to the throne.”



Stannis adores this sentence, and like the rest of the few things he actually likes, he is moderately obsessed with it.  Soon he will be appointing this sentence to the small council, and asking it sincere questions about its religious beliefs.

 

Q: Does anyone else like this sentence?

A: No.

 

The Northerners Themselves

Just before I left King’s Landing to do Important Things in Dorne, Danaerys Targaeryen married a Dothraki horselord.  Concerned individuals in King’s Landing began debating the horrifying concept of Westeros being invaded by a horde of screaming savages.  I am pleased to report that this is no longer a concern, because it is _already happening._

 

I have spent nearly two weeks with the Northern army by this point, and I have not discovered a single grain of fashion sense among them.  They favor enormous beards, think nothing of sharp-toothed children riding wolves, and _never_ hold tournaments.  I am no longer completely sure why it so important to Stannis to keep them part of this kingdom.

 

Individually important Northerners:

 

House Stark

 

Robb Stark, Calling Himself King in the North

 

The most important thing about Robb Stark is, of course, that _you_ may not call him King in the North.  You’ll want to go with Lord Stark, and you’ll want to try to get it in the iciest tone of politeness you can, just enough to pointlessly set everyone in the peace council on edge over semantic pride.

 

Robb is an angry kid whose father was murdered, and has managed to become a war hero despite a string of bad decisions and a cripplingly inferior beard.  At one point he had lost almost his entire army, but of course this was not the point when Stannis decided to march North.

 

Robb seems nice enough, but he’s got his army back now, and he’s not going to surrender without a _very_ good reason.

 

Q: Does he have a wolf?

A: Of course he does!  Its name is Grey Wind, and it does not like you.

Q: Is it just me, or is his crown even uglier than Stannis’s?

A: It is not just you.

 

Lady Catelyn, the Widow Stark

 

By far the most competent child of Hoster Tully, Lady Catelyn is polite, well-spoken, and gracious, none of which nullifies the fact that she really deeply regrets never getting to kill the entire Lannister family with her bare hands.  Opinions are divided over whether Robb listens to his mother too much, or needs to listen to her a lot more.

 

Q: So, the thing with the Kingslayer…?

A: There was a thing with the Kingslayer, yes. 

Q: Which was?

A: She may have let him go out of mercy when he became useless as a hostage, she may have slowly strangled him and then bathed in his blood.  The Northmen are pretty quiet on the specifics.

Q: But there was a thing?

A: _Probably._

Small Additional Starks.

 

There are two of these.  As a general rule, we are not allowed anywhere near them. 

 

Q: What should I do if I approach a small Stark?

A: Under no circumstances should you approach a small Stark.

Q: What should I do if a small Stark approaches me?

A: No one seems to have informed the Stark children that they are not allowed contact with the Southrons- or, more likely, they’ve been told and don’t care.  If you are approached by one of them, remain calm.  Try to project an air of utter harmlessness, and drop your weapon if necessary.  You will quickly be surrounded by a group of large, hairy men and/or direwolves, all looking at you as though you were personally responsible for every bad thing that has happened to the North since at least the Year of the False Spring.  Remain calm, but be aware that they can smell fear, especially if they are direwolves.

 

Speaking of which…

 

The Direwolves.

 

There are ~~two~~ three of these things, there are three of them now.  Avoid AT ALL COSTS.  Be aware that Robb Stark brings his direwolf to peace council meetings, as though it is a lapdog.  Also be aware that Northerners find a reasonable fear of giant wild animals to be the most hilarious thing they have ever seen.

 

Ever since the third one showed up, we have been surrounded by howling at night.  Remain in your tent.

 

Ned Stark.

 

Ned Stark is dead, but this has not stopped him from being by far the most important figure at the peace council meetings.  He has all the critical attributes of a great hero: brave, honorable, and headless.  Headless men- this is critical- cannot talk.  This means that everyone else has the solemn duty to talk _for_ them.

 

And here’s the thing: no one here has any fucking idea what Ned Stark would do in this situation.  I would make the further argument that maybe we should not be deciding the fate of seven kingdoms on what Ned Stark would do in this situation, because- and this is critical- what Ned Stark did at the beginning of this situation was _get himself beheaded._

 

Q: Did you, Renly, get yourself beheaded? 

A: No.  And yet _no one_ will listen to me.

 

Non Stark Northerners

The Northern side of the peace council consists of Robb, Lady Catelyn, and four Northern bannermen: Angry Giant, Death Grandma, Swamp Davos, and Oh Look They Brought Us An Ice Zombie Wasn’t That Nice of Them.  They are summarized below.

 

Lord Jon “Greatjon” Umber.

 

I’m going to take a short break here to talk about Northern nicknames.  The North has a very small store of good nicknames, and the Starks got most of them.  It’s easy to nickname a Stark, because you just append  a useful adjective or verb to the word “wolf-“  Young Wolf, She-Wolf, Wild Wolf, Ankle-Biting Wolf, etc.  The “Greatjon” here got away pretty well, but the rest of the Umber contingent is represented by “Crowfood,” “Whoresbane,” and “Smalljon.”  These are not nicknames.  These are duel-worthy insults.  And the thing is, when a Southerner has a stupid nickname (say, “Blackfish,” and see below) he knows it’s a stupid nickname.  Lord Seaworth doesn’t go by “Onion Knight” because he thinks onions are the world’s most badass vegetable.  He goes by Onion Knight because people were going to insult him anyway, and this way they’re doing it on his terms.  But there’s a Northerner here who answers to “Big Bucket,” and if you find it funny he will be thrilled to chop off your leg.

 

  1.   Lord Umber. 



Diplomatic endgoal: For the North to go fight the Wildlings as an independent state.

 If we want him on our side: Stannis is probably going to have to defeat him in a bar brawl.  Odds of this happening: Low.

 

Q: So, how’d he lose the fingers?

A: Grey Wind bit them off.

Q: So, he harbors a bit of a grudge?

A: Of course not.  In fact, this was apparently the event that cemented his loyalty to a teenager as king of an independent North.

Q: Has this upset your worldview in some fashion?

A: Apparently, I have been wasting my time with diplomatic skills, good looks, and a charming personality.  If I want to secure long-term devotion in my subjects, what I really need to be doing is _chopping off minor appendages._

Q: Two people is a very small sample size.

A: _Any_ people is a very disturbing trend.

 

Lady Maege Mormont

 

Lady Mormont has an axe.  This is not her only notable characteristic, far from it, but it is certainly the first thing you will notice.  Every man in the room has a sword, of course, but it’s that giant, shiny, silver axehead looming over the shoulders of a tiny old woman that really reinforces the thought “hey, there are _weapons_ in this room of _angry, unstable people._ ”

 

Lots of them.

Diplomatic endgoal: Dead ironborn and probably Dornish succession laws

If we want her on our side: Really stress Stannis’s role in crushing the Iron Fleet back in the day

Odd of this happening: I’ve been trying.  Really I have.  Never let it be said that I am incapable of complimenting my brother just because he is utterly incapable of complimenting me.  I’m not him, and I don’t hold grudges like that.  Really.

 

Q: What does she have against the Ironborn?

A: Besides the fact that they are obnoxious thieving pirates with a religious lifestyle that can basically be summed up as “Melisandre, but with drowning?”

Q: Yes.

A: Apparently they like to hit Bear Island on raids.  This would not be my reaction to a place named after enormous carnivores, but hey, to each their own.

Q: Speaking of bears, did one really father her daughters?

A: Margaery has informed me that this is biologically impossible.

 

Lord Howland Reed

 

You may not notice Howland Reed at first glance.  This is because, for the last living survivor of the mission to rescue Lyanna Stark, he does an _amazing_ impression of oddly-colored upholstery.  You see the axe, and the giant, and the _enormous fucking wolf_ , and chances are you won’t notice the short guy in brown unless he speaks, which, of course, he rarely does.

 

His coat of arms is a lizard-lion, a creature that, coincidentally, disguises itself as a harmless log until it leaps up and eats you alive. 

 

Diplomatic endgoal: No one knows.

If we want him on our side:  It’s always possible he could be swayed by reasoned debate.

Odds of this happening: Mine is a bitter, bitter laugh.

 

Q: Is it true he killed Ser Arthur Dayne?

A: Loras brought this up with him, but instead of answering, he just kind of looked pensive for the rest of the meeting.

Q: Was this a different silent pensiveness than normal?

A: In retrospect, probably not.

 

Lord Roose Bolton

 

  1.   Do you feel that chill, washing over you?  It may just be that we’re on the edge of the North in Winter, but it may also be Roose Bolton, entering the room.  His sigil is, I am not making this up, a flayed corpse.  Men willingly charge into battle underneath it, somehow still convincing themselves that they follow a noble cause, the same way men willingly attempted, long ago, to put a man named “Daemon Blackfyre”on the Iron Throne.  Someday, particularly if Stannis is king for much longer, there will be armies marching beneath a black flag with an onion on it, and they _still_ will not have the worst sigil in Westeros. 



 

Melisandre dislikes him.  Under normal circumstances, I would take this as a character witness, but that was before he brought a bowl of leeches to a council meeting.

 

Diplomatic endgoal: Likely something more horrible than we mere mortals can imagine.

If we want him on our side: We don’t.

If we _need_ him on our side: Virgin sacrifice?

Odds of this happening: Significantly higher than I’m comfortable with.

 

Q: Why did he want leeches?

A: You don’t want to know. I certainly didn’t, and yet, I got to find out anyway.

Q: Didn’t one of the Freys claim he was a traitor?

A: The Freys claimed a number of things when faced with an army.

Q: He sure _looks_ like a traitor.

A: Oh, undeniably, but he’s not our traitor.  There’s no way things could be going this badly if Stannis had a traitor right on Robb Stark’s war council.

Q: Look, he’s up to _something._   Those are not the eyes, fingers, and sallow complexion of a man who is not up to _something._

A: Congratulations!  You’re evidently smarter than Robb Stark.

 

Riverlanders

Edmure Tully

 

Edmure Tully is also on the Peace Council.

 

Hang on.  Where’s everyone else?

  


You may have noticed that, in the time it took us to drag our own forces up here, the Northern army lost significant manpower.  This is not, as it appears at first glance, a good sign.  As far as we can tell, several thousand soldiers, Brynden Tully, a number of prominent lords, and Queen Jeyne did not just disappear into thin air.  They’re out there somewhere.  Lurking.  Waiting.

General suspicion has it that if Rickon and Arya Stark suddenly vanish, they’ve been moved to the relative safety of the flanking force, and also that the main body of the Northern army has given up on diplomacy and is about to charge.  Chances are, in fact, that we’ll see the charge long before we notice the children missing, but it’s nice to at least pretend we’ve got a handle on what’s going on.

 

In Conclusion

Well, here we are.  I don’t want to be here.  You don’t want to be here.  The rats in the food wagons probably don’t want to be here either.  But at least I can say this.

Q: Say what?

A: It probably beats the _heck_ out of ice zombies.

 

Yours cordially,

Renly Baratheon, Prince of Storm’s End.


End file.
